Like Fire Through Bone (11 page)

The soldiers posted at the huge iron gate signaled them to halt.

“State your purpose,” one soldier ordered.

“Traveling out to the desert on business,” Markos told them, and after conferring with each other, the soldiers waved them through.

“You are free to pass.”

“Thank you.” Markos inclined his head to them and waited as the huge gate slowly rose with a deep, creaking sound of metal against metal. It boomed to a stop, and Markos clicked to his horse so they could pass under. Patros followed.

The land the road cut through outside the wall was not as immediately barren as Vasilios had thought it would be. Small, wooden, shack-like houses had been built leaning against the outside of the wall, and people, mostly vagrants and beggars from the look of them, wandered around outside them. The land was not as green and lush as it was to the northwest of the city, but it was not devoid of plants either. There was some sort of stiff grass growing along the edge of the road, and Vasilios could make out spindly, spiky trees with light-gray bark growing together in groves. A small boy, who wore only a rather ragged piece of cloth tied around his waist, pulled a goat on a rope along the side of the road. He stopped and stared at them, openmouthed, as they rode by.

Markos slowed his horse, then drew up beside them. “I think we’ll make the foothills by this evening and camp there,” he said. “And we can travel into the desert tomorrow.”

Patros nodded, and Vasilios shifted a little but kept quiet. He was unused to traveling on horseback and had a nasty feeling he was going to be sore all over when they stopped for the night.

By the time roughly an hour had passed, the landscape around them had noticeably changed. There was less grass and more light-brown earth that was not quite sand, but far from fertile. The small copses of thin, thorny trees that still dotted the landscape had small buds of new dark-green growth among the thorns. The land was flat enough that Vasilios could make out the dark-brown-and-red sandstone foothills ahead yet quite a ways off. Vasilios knew from his study of maps of the Empire that the hills formed the tail end of the great mountain chain that ran along the edge of the desert.

His legs were starting to cramp as were his wrists where he had them locked together to keep his grip on Patros’s waist as the horse trotted over the rough ground.

“You all right?” Patros asked.

“Yes.” Vasilios shifted a little again. “I’m just not used to riding on horseback.”

“Didn’t you grow up riding?” Patros sounded surprised.

“No.” Vasilios snorted. “I was born on Nisii, the largest of the islands in the Southern Sea, but even so, we didn’t have horses there—sheep and goats but not horses.”

“Oh.” Patros seemed to think about that.

“Where were you born?” Vasilios asked, simply because speaking, even if not strictly appropriate, was better than riding in silence again.

“Not far from here, actually,” Patros said. “My father was a financial minister up at the Imperial Palace. My mother and I lived in one of his country villas west of the city.” He laughed. “Which means I’ve been riding pretty much since I could walk.”

Vasilios turned Patros’s statement over in his head. The way that he had said it made Vasilios suspect Patros was illegitimate. That made sense, since military service was the best choice for an illegitimate son of a well-placed family. At the moment, Vasilios didn’t remember Patros’s father’s name, although he was sure he’d been given it when they were introduced.

“It must be nice,” he said, “to have known how for that long.”

“I suppose.” Patros laughed lightly. “It is a skill that has come in handy.”

“I learned how to tie a fishing net when I was six. My father was a fisherman, you see,” Vasilios told him, unsure why, and then laughed a little. “Though that’s hardly been helpful for most of my life.”

They rode in silence again for a little while, and then Markos, who’d been riding slightly ahead, slowed and came to ride beside them.

“Maybe we could stop soon for a minute or so,” Patros said to Markos. “Let Vasilios stretch his legs a little.”

“I don’t need to—” Vasilios began, but Markos had turned to look at him now, his brows furrowed before smoothing out in realization.

“That would be fine.” He smiled at Vasilios, who looked down, a little annoyed that he didn’t have the stamina of the other two, even though he would be glad for a chance to get off the horse.

They stopped after a little while, and Markos swung down off the horse and then led the way into a small grove of the thorny trees. Patros dismounted, then helped Vasilios down. Vasilios stretched, then began trying to work the kinks out of his shoulders. He was grateful for the scarf protecting his head and shading his face. It had kept the worst of the sun off. He suspected he would be even more grateful for it the next day when they started through the desert.

Vasilios sat on the sparse grass and looked over at Patros and Markos, who stood close together over by the horses.

“I still don’t like you being out there essentially unprotected,” Patros said. “You should have a full guard detail. If one of your enemies were to find you….”

“Who is going to find me?” Markos asked. “This close to the capital?”

“An agent of the Flower Empire,” Patros said, and Markos made a disbelieving noise.

“Or one of your enemies at court. I would not put it past some of those young commanders to send someone for you in the hopes that the Emperor would promote them to fill your post.”

“That’s why I have you,” Markos said, and Patros snorted and rolled his eyes, but his expression was still wary.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you talk to Xêgodis Aetia before we left?” Markos asked, and Patros nodded.

“Yes.”

“And did he say the house was still being watched? Because I thought we took care of that problem already.”

“No sir. According to Xêgodis, no one’s been watching the house,” Patros answered. “But one of the guards at the gate could have recognized you, or we could have been followed from some point in the city.”

“I think we need to be watchful and prudent,” Markos said, “but I don’t feel like the danger is imminent.” He turned and saw Vasilios watching them.

Vasilios’s gaze dropped away quickly, embarrassed to be caught listening in to a conversation that had obviously not been meant to include him. He heard Markos sigh, and then boots came into his view.

Markos knelt down, and Vasilios looked up at him slowly, trying to gauge how angry he was.

“I owe you an apology,” Markos said. “I’m sorry for not talking to you about this before we left, but you see, I have many enemies, some of them at court, and Patros thinks there might be a very small chance that they would have found out about this trip, and be planning to attack me while I am relatively unprotected. Now, I do not think this likelihood is particularly great or I would not have brought you along, but the chance does exist, and I should have explained that to you before now.”

Vasilios took a minute to think about that, then reached out and lightly touched the back of Markos’s hand. “I trust you. If you think the risk is not great, then I trust that you know what you are doing. Also I am willing to do whatever is in my capability to make sure more children do not die.”

Markos’s hand turned slowly under his until their palms pressed together. Markos curled his fingers around Vasilios’s in a gentle squeeze. “Thank you.”

Behind them, Patros cleared his throat, and when Vasilios looked over at him, Patros grinned back at him. With a regretful sigh, Markos let go of Vasilios’s hand and stood.

“Why doesn’t Vasilios ride with you for a little while, sir?” Patros asked, a smile still turning up the corners of his mouth.

Both Markos and Vasilios froze, and then Vasilios turned to look up at Markos. “I… wouldn’t mind,” Vasilios said, and for a moment Markos seemed on the verge of saying no. Then he shrugged and swung up into the saddle. He held out his hand to Vasilios, who struggled to swing up as well.

Getting back in the saddle after his brief respite was torture, and his back, legs, and buttocks complained bitterly. He ignored them and wrapped his arms around Markos’s waist, feeling the solidness of him, the way the muscles in his back moved where it pressed against Vasilios’s front.

They headed back to the road, and once there, rode steadily toward the hills that loomed ever closer.

“There should be a stream up there in those foothills,” Markos said, pointing. “We can camp there for the night, bathe, and restock our supply of water for tomorrow.”

“Do you know where to go once you reach the desert?” Vasilios asked

“Yes. I’ve talked with Theofilos, and had him tell me everything he knew of this woman. Aritê of the Desert she’s called, and the route he took to get to her hut.”

Vasilios nodded, tightening his grip on Markos’s waist as they went over a particularly rough patch of road.

“I must admit, I have a vague idea of the geography of this part of the Empire but nothing beyond that.”

“You study a lot,” Markos said, and Vasilios squinted at the back of Markos’s head, trying to figure out whether Markos was impressed by this or critical.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Panagiotis values education when it comes to his eunuchs, and he bought me especially to be his secretary. I don’t know why. After all, I couldn’t read or write back then and was dead set against ever bowing to a master.”

“What changed?” Markos asked after a minute, and Vasilios looked away, considering the question. “After I was taken prisoner and cut so that I became a eunuch, I swore I would die rather than live a slave to my enemies, and in such shame. So when Panagiotis bought me, he gave me a choice: obey and serve him and become his secretary, or if I really wanted to die, go to the iron mines in the north, where I would die of starvation or exposure if the working conditions didn’t kill me first.” Vasilios fell silent, remembering. “I discovered then that I didn’t want to die as much as I had thought,” he said finally. “So Panagiotis had me taught how to read and write, do math and understand business, science, and the running of a household. There was a eunuch then, part of Panagiotis’s household, the eldest eunuch in fact, who hated me.”

He knew he’d gone far past the point of a simple answer to Markos’s question, but he’d never told this story before, and he was finding he wanted to tell Markos. “He used to beat me a lot at the slightest provocation, call me a barbarian, tell me I’d never be as good as a true eunuch, born and bred in the capital. I decided then, that I would become the best eunuch I could be, that people would talk about me with envy and admiration.”

“What happened to the eunuch who used to beat you?” Markos asked, his voice serious and deep.

“Oh, he died,” Vasilios said. “During the last great outbreak of sweating sickness, about ten years ago.”

“You are, you know,” Markos said. “Very, very well-thought-of for what you do, especially the handling of Panagiotis’s business matters.”

“Thank you.” Vasilios felt a blush rise and willed himself to calm so it would go away.

The sun was getting low, and that brought a small amount of coolness to the air. Vasilios leaned a little to one side, squinting ahead, trying to see the stream Markos had spoken of. The land they were riding through had already become rocky, with hills rising up on either side, and Vasilios thought that was probably a good sign. Gods, but he’d be glad to get off this horse, hopefully sometime sooner rather than later.

Markos slowed their pace until they were riding alongside Patros, and Markos pointed. “There,” he said. “We’ll stop there for the night.”

They rode on for another quarter, and Vasilios had begun to ride with his teeth clenched against the pain in his lower back. Markos turned off the road and led them up a small hill, then down the other side. There was a stream there, wide but shallow, and Markos reined in his horse, then got off, and held his hands out to Vasilios. Vasilios dismounted, legs shaking so badly that he nearly fell but caught himself at the last minute by holding on to the saddle.

Luckily Markos didn’t comment. He made sure Vasilios was standing on the ground, and then he led the horse over to the stream to drink while he rubbed him down. Patros had also dismounted and was doing the same for his horse. Vasilios stretched, feeling the way his legs and back screamed at him, not used to this particular form of workout.

“You can bathe if you want”—Markos came back over to where Vasilios sat—“while Patros and I set up camp. It will help if you’re feeling stiff.”

Vasilios snorted a little at the idea of calling the pain he was currently in “stiffness,” even as his eyes strayed to the water. He didn’t much care for the idea of stripping naked in front of Markos, but on the other hand, he didn’t care for the idea of going without bathing either. The Gods be praised, Vasilios had never had, as some eunuchs did, problems controlling his bladder, but he was still very aware of that particular rumor, especially among guards and soldiers. Then his mind caught up with the rest of what Markos had said, and he bit his lip, thinking.

“Do we….” He hesitated, unsure if he should ask. “Do we need to stop for the night? Would it not be possible to keep riding?” Flooded by images of the last dream he’d had, he looked up at Markos. “I’m afraid of what might happen if we wait too long before casting this demon out.”

Markos’s mouth tightened and he nodded. “I’ll speak with Patros, but I understand your fear.” He reached out to touch Vasilios’s shoulder. “If we keep riding, you understand it will be harder on you.”

Vasilios clenched his jaw and nodded. “I do.”

Markos stood. “Take a bath if you’d like, while we are here.”

He turned and walked over to Patros, who was filling several skins with water. They spoke in low voices, and Patros turned to look at Vasilios for a moment and then nodded.

Markos walked back over to him. “We will try to do the rest of the journey tonight,” he said, “but we’ll stay here for a little while, rest, and eat before moving on.”

Vasilios nodded. “Thank you,” he said, voice soft, and then he looked back over at the stream. “I do think while we’re here, I’d like to bathe.”